


Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

by Cartonsofcartoons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:55:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartonsofcartoons/pseuds/Cartonsofcartoons
Summary: In which a time travelling Boy-Who-Lived who wants to see his parents meets a Dark Lord canvassing for talent.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

Tom Marvolo Riddle longed for the day when he could ‘die’. Well, the man: Tom, had disappeared a long time ago, yes, but once his plans were set into motion, once he had aggregated enough followers, once this facade of the charming young man could be put to death, only then would he feel free. 

 

But now, with Abraxas dead of something as stupid as dragonpox and Avery’s finances reduced due to his father’s bungling, he needed more supporters, more imbeciles willing to die for him. It didn’t take much to sway them, Voldemort had power and magic and the truly Slytherin skill of Parseltongue with him. He even had scouts looking for ‘talents’ to bring to him.

 

Those scouts were idiots though. Purebloods with money on their side to entice talented witches and wizards with the offer to sponsor them but not a lick of common sense to gauge which ones would side with them. They were utter imbeciles who simply did not fathom how money could not buy everything.

 

Abraxas’ spawn was a prime example of it. He would grow into a smarter man, no doubt but now he was still too full of youthful arrogance. If Abraxas was alive he would have taken the boy in hand but alas, Echidna was too soft on her boy, doting on him and giving him none of the discipline he needed.

 

So there ‘Tom’ was, under the guise of Dean Fergusson, a pureblood who was homeschooled and venturing out into the Wizarding world on his own, staying at the Leaky Cauldron.

 

Malfoy would never have thought of this, the Leaky Cauldron was too plebeian for his tastes.

 

But the Leaky Cauldron was the one place that everyone in the Wizarding World passed through at least once. And now in the summer months it was going to be busier than ever. The Floo would flash green every few minutes as hordes of students and their parents tumbled into the pub, having a warm conversation with Tom the bartender before moving on to Diagon Alley to shop for the school year. The doors of the pub opened again and again as well, as Muggleborns and their parents entered the gateway to the Wizarding world. And those doors were what had most of Tom’s attention.

 

The purebloods weren’t going to be missed by many of the scouts but Tom knew that he would find those like him coming through the doors. Those who had lived with muggles and hated them more fiercely than any pureblood could. Those who looked at the Wizarding world and saw sanctuary, a sanctuary they would do  _ anything _ to protect. Diamonds in the rough that would shatter the fragile rose tinted glasses Dumbledore and his ilk had erected.

 

High pitched laughter broke through Tom’s thoughts and he followed the sound to the group of First year muggleborns that Mcgonagall was leading into Diagon Alley. The other patrons of the bars watched on, some with fondness, some with hatred as Mcgonagall introduced the children and their parents to the Leaky Cauldron and the bartender who ran it.

 

He could already tell that there was one child in the group that held great potential, the sullen looking one with the redhead who shared many a feature with Eileen Prince-who had disappeared after graduating Hogwarts under a cloud of scandal, never to be mentioned again by her family. Tom would keep an eye on that boy, there was still time yet for him to grow into the man he could be. Right now he was too enthralled by the redheaded mudblood to be of much use to him.

 

So instead, Tom watched the people in the bar. He kept note of those with the murderous looks aimed at the muggleborns, of those who were doing very well hiding their disgruntlement under blank, neutral faces. The latter would be useful in political games, the former would be better as a line of attack. Both useful, of course, Voldemort was fighting a war on many fronts.

 

And in his perusal of the patrons of the pub, Tom saw a most intriguing sight. There was a man, half hidden in the shadows watching the children intently. There was neither the patronising fondness of the muggle lovers, nor the disgust and hatred of the pureblood fanatics. What the man wore instead was the strangest cacophony of emotions, bared on his face for all to see. Wistful, devoted, longing combined with the fiercest of protectiveness. Awe and wonder flitting across his face as he watched…

 

As he watched the very same duo that Tom had been watching, the sullen boy and the redhead. When the group made to leave the pub to enter Diagon Alley the man made to follow, as did Tom. 

 

Anomalies were most interesting and this man was a strange one. The gamut of feelings that he was experiencing so openly, they were  _ fascinating _ .

 

The redhead girl tripped suddenly, an occurrence coinciding with the flash of a wand from one of those neutral looking people whose potential Tom had filed away as useful but now discarded the man from consideration. Muggle baiting in front of Mcgonagall in a public place was a stupid thing to do.

 

But before the redhead could so much as tilt farther than a few inches, the man in the shadows was reaching for her, helping her to her feet before she had even fallen. Her sullen little friend shot a suspicious look at the man but a murderous one at the other who had fired the tripping jinx. Tom knew that boy was going to go far and he had only proved it.

 

“Are you alright?” The man asked the girl with a voice that seemed rough from disuse.

 

The girl coloured as she looked at him and smiled, “I’m okay,” She chirped, “Thank you for your help!”

 

“Lily!” Came an exclamation from the parents and they hovered with questions to her safety. Such displays always made Tom uncomfortable.

 

Apparently it made the sullen boy uncomfortable too as he pulled a bit away from the group to step closer to the man.

 

“She didn’t trip.” He said softly and it was only the hearing charms Tom had set up all over the pub that allowed him to hear it. The man nodded gravely.

 

“So I noticed. I’ll take care of it.” He said and turned to the boy, “You’re a good friend.” 

 

The sullen boy flushed and turned to the girl who was looking back at him, curious. They must have known one another very well to have the sort of silent conversation that they did. Whatever the girl saw in his face answered her unasked questions and she turned back to her parents.

 

“I’ll have to tell her,” The sullen boy said with a bit of sadness.

 

“There are dangerous times ahead, a bit of caution would come handy,” The man agreed and pulled four galleons out of his pocket, “Take her to Fortescue's, a bit of ice cream will help.”

 

The boy’s eyes widened at the gold he was suddenly given. Tom knew that feeling, the giddy feeling of being able to buy things tempered by the sting at the pity in the handout. The man hadn’t even thought twice and Tom wondered if he even realized he had handed the boy enough money to buy all his supplies for the first year in a secondhand shop. Salazar, in Tom’s school days four galleons would have covered a month’s stay at the Leaky Cauldron.

 

And the man just gave it away like pocket change so that a young boy could take his friend to have some ice cream.

 

He grew more and more interesting by the second.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Power was a heady, intoxicating thing, Harry realised now. He had never had it before, not really.

 

Well, that wasn’t quite right, Harry had always had power. He had money, he had magic and he had prestige and clout.

 

But he didn’t know that he had it. He’d been kept in the dark for so long but even worse than that, he had _let_ himself stay in the dark. Gone along with what the rest told him. Been willfully ignorant to his power to keep his friends.

 

There was no one to blame but himself. He had been manipulated, certainly but he had let himself be manipulated because it was the easy thing to do. And he paid the price for it in a guilty conscience.

 

It was only once the dust had settled, once the world had calmed, once daily life had resumed that Harry had really felt guilty. When he saw the empty spaces left behind by the people who had died, and in many cases, died for _him_. Died so he could continue on a ridiculous quest left to him by a manipulative old coot. He had let himself go along on a senseless horcrux hunt when he should have been out there doing what he did best, fighting on the front lines. Harry was a brawler, not a researcher, what was he doing looking for horcruxes anyway? So yes, Harry felt guilt.

 

And it had started with camera. Colin’s camera to be exact. Dennis had given it to Harry, saying that was what Colin would have wanted. And Harry had set up a little darkroom and begun the process of developing photos from the reel.

 

Colin hadn’t done much photography in his last few months. There were photos on the reel from his fifth year, Harry’s sixth. And it was one such old photo that had really made Harry feel the guilt.

 

It was a Christmas photo with his parents and brother. Colin must have set up the camera on a ledge or something and switched the time ron. It looked as if it had gone off too early and so captured half of Colin’s face too close to the camera, looking dazed and laughing as the flash went off while in the other half, Dennis sat on the floor in between his father’s legs.

 

And Harry thought, _‘I could have stopped this.’_

 

And if he was a muggle, he’d have been _consumed_ by that thought. That he _could_ have stopped it but didn’t and now there was no turning back time. It would drive him mad, kill him from the inside out.

 

But Harry wasn’t a muggle. He was a wizard. A wizard prone to impulsive acts of madness, with access to the Black library where no type of magic was forbidden.

 

Least of all Time magic.

 

So, with his Holly wand and Invisibility cloak in his pocket, a mokeskin pouch filled with all his money and books, and the Elder wand in hand, Harry broke into the Ministry to steal the stones of the arch that contained the veil, set up the ritual and with a swish and flick and a flourish of the Elder wand he left his world behind.

 

Having power was a heady thing, Harry realised. _Using_ it, was even headier.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have exams coming up, so expect a shit ton of updates as I desperately attempt to distract myself from my impending nervous breakdown through writing fanfic.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The thing with turning back time was that it made Harry rather...lazy. Everything he knew about the war would really start after two or three years later, after all. He knew that right now Voldemort was dealing with the fallout of Abraxas Malfoy’s death and that soon other school friends of his would follow leaving him with a  dearth of followers. Right now he was probably still campaigning, still looking for followers. Bellatrix Black was only in her third year yet, with Narcissa and Andromeda joining her the next year in school. Lucius was still in school as well, his sixth year

 

There wasn’t as much to be done that he could do. Politics could be played to his advantage of course but time travellers with fake identities weren’t likely to be given much political capital and besides, that just wasn’t Harry’s forte. 

 

So he’d just waited a bit. It was a bit of a surprise coming across his mother, well the girl that would one day grow up to be his mother in the Leaky Cauldron, along with future Potions Master Snape. They were so tiny, was Harry this tiny when he first came to school? Then again, even in his first year the rest of his class had towered over him, he’d probably been even tinier.

 

It was seeing the two young versions of them that had stoked the curiosity in Harry’s mind. He wondered about the house his mother had grown up in. He’d never seen it, Petunia had never kept any photos of her childhood and Harry was curious. 

 

In his mind he had a pretty picture of it, a cottage straight out of an Enid Blyton book came to mind but that was probably false.

 

He was right, it was false. Cokesworth was a greying, drab place, the only spots of brightness and colour came the clothes hanging off drying lines. He followed the trail of magic left behind by his mother to her house and found her house. It was in a better part of the neighbourhood, although not by much, only enough that it was close to the park nearby.

 

That park, he knew, was where Severus and Lily met to play as children and once the sight of the grey houses grew too much for him, Harry made his way over to the island of green.

 

He didn’t know much about the place but Petunia had on occasion mentioned growing up almost alone given that there were such few children around her.  With Severus and Lily on their way to King’s Cross station today for their first day at Hogwarts and Harry expected the park to be empty. 

 

It wasn’t. 

 

A teenage version of his aunt was sat there on the grass, her feet tucked carefully under her legs. Her back was straight and facing him but he knew that long neck far too well and with a silent swear, made to leave.

 

But the grass rustled under his feet and she turned almost violently, a sneer on her splotchy face.

 

“Who are  _ you _ ?” She said with her usual disdain and almost on instinct Harry’s wand slipped out of his sleeve. He didn’t point it at her or anything but her eyes turned wide at the sight of it. He wondered if he should obliviate her, it left a bad taste in his mouth but strange wizards creeping about their town was going to make trouble, there were already four adults in this town who knew of magic, the Evans and the Snapes and it was four more than Harry knew to handle.

 

But then Petunia did the oddest thing.

 

She burst into  _ tears _ .

 

Harry had never really seen his aunt cry. To be faced with this child version of her doing so, made him unbearably nervous. He rifled through his coat pockets furiously and handed her a handkerchief with shaking hands wishing Hermione was here.

 

“There, there?” He said tentatively. That was what he needed to say, right? Was he supposed to pat her or something? He didn’t foresee any version of Petunia being willing to let him touch her.

 

But once again he was proven wrong as Petunia hurtled herself towards him and wrapped her arms around his middle. 

 

She was so  _ little _ , even with her long bones. As Harry’s arms curled themselves around her, slowly, unaware of how to do this, they ended up resting around her head. Through the heaving sobs he could make out a bare few words she spoke and more than a little pity went through him.

 

She wanted to be able to do magic.

 

His aunt Petunia was so distraught that she couldn’t do magic, she had hugged a stranger for comfort. His mouth worked of its own accord, whispering soothing words to her, asking her to stop crying, that it was okay, it would all be okay.

 

And she ripped herself out of his arms and through a snotty, nasal voice said, “It’s easy for you to say that,  _ you _ can do magic!”

 

And Harry wondered how he would handle it.

 

“I had to work very hard to learn how to do it properly though. Went to school, did homework, gave exams. It’s more like a special subject really.”

 

“I can’t learn that subject though, can I?” She spat out and blew her nose, a loud and wet noise.

 

“It’s...it’s not that great,” Harry said the words but didn’t quite feel it. Magic was wonderful, magic had saved him. He couldn’t not love it and he didn’t want Petunia to not love it either, only give her something else to love. “Okay, magic is nice but the people are...not that nice. Actually they’re rather stupid.”

 

“So are most people without magic,” Petunia said with such a haughty demeanour, Malfoy would have been jealous.

 

“Magic sometimes...makes them stupid.” He thought about what Hermione had said about logic being a wizard’s weakness. Logic he had found, had no place in the magical world, belief made more things happen that logic did but he could understand the lack of rationality frustrating people. He just didn’t know how to explain it to Petunia without making her jealous of the things she couldn’t do. So he drew on all the things that had become pet peeves for him over the years “It’s...they live in farm like lands most of them. It’s very quaint but after a while, you really wish you could pop down the shops to get some eggs instead of checking the hen house for them. There’s no things as TV’s either, only radios. They don’t know about the moon landing, did you know that? There are people who’ve been in space, that pretty magical in its own rights but they don’t know about it.”

 

Petunia’s eyes had gone wide but with incredulity this time, not fear or anger. 

 

“You don’t mean that?!”

 

“I do. See there’s this thing called the statue of secrecy-”

 

“I know about that McGonagall told us.” Petunia interrupted impatiently and Harry smiled.

 

“It was passed in the 1690’s you know. That’s a very long time ago, after all, and it’s only people like your sister who come in from the muggle world who can tell the wizards and witches about these things, but they’re often busy studying so they never know. They use candles and quills in the magical world, they don’t know about pens at all.”

 

“That’s ridiculous.” Petunia sniffed.

 

“It is. And worse still, there are some very stupid people who think that people like your sister and others like her have stolen magic from them and so they try to hunt them.”

 

Petunia gasped, “Lily’s in trouble?! We have to go save her!”

 

“It’s alright, I’ve got Severus looking out for her. You know he’ll do whatever he can to protect her.”

 

Petunia scrunched up her face but nodded. “I guess.” She said, sullen.

 

“I’m not trying to scare you but...magic isn’t all frills and fun. It can be rather dangerous, to you, to others, to the people who cast it themselves. It’s why they go to school, to learn how to control it.”

 

Petunia seemed to understand for all that she was still unhappy. She wanted to do magic, Harry could understand that. How often had he laid under his covers at Privet Drive and wished for his wand to be there that he might do some magic himself?

 

“When I was in school, a teacher of mine, he used to say that music is a kind of magic, that love is a magic as well. It’s just a word at the end of the day,  _ you  _ get to decide what is magical to you.”

 

Petunia chewed her lip, lost in contemplation. It was then that a yell for her sounded and Harry realised that the Evans must be back from dropping Lily off at King’s Cross. 

 

“Well, that’s my cue.” Harry said and put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. At the end of the day she was still his aunt and he didn’t like to see her cry. “Don’t be sad, okay?”

 

Another yell of her name had her snapping her head to where it came from and Harry took the chance and disapparated back to his muggle hotel room with a sigh. 

 

It had been a long day and he hadn’t even begun to change anything yet!

 

* * *

 

But change things he had, for all that he didn’t realise it. Only a few hours later in a castle in Scotland, an old, sentient hat descended upon the head of a young boy as his friend watched on from the Gryffindor table. Her sorting had taken some time and she had watched their ranks grow with trepidation. Potter, Black and the rest were little more than bullying hooligans and Lily was worried to be in her house, although the girls had been nice enough.

 

On his part, Severus was worried. The hat was talking about Slytherin and, well, his mother had been in that house as well.

 

But he remembered that man from the Leaky Cauldron, the one who had saved Lily from falling. How that man had turned to Severus with so much  _ faith  _ when he asked him to practice caution, to cheer Lily up. As if he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Severus would do so.

 

It was a heady feeling, trust. Severus had felt as if he had been given a mission, a task. Like a knight who had been set a brave quest by his king. Severus wanted to do that man proud.

 

And Slytherin was no place to do it.

 

_ “Not Slytherin, not Slytherin,” _ Severus all but chanted and the hat hemmed and hawwed.

 

_ “Not Slytherin, eh, well if you’re sure, it had better be  _ **_GRYFFINDOR_ ** _!” _

 

And as Severus made his way over to the seat next to his friend, Lily led her housemates into the loudest applause any student had gotten so far.

 

Next to Slughorn, the Divinations professor, Marcus Mopsus, felt a shiver run down his spine.

 

Fate had been changed.

 


End file.
